Resurrection Row - Anne Perry [9]
McDuff went straight to the old lady, ignoring the other two. He took her wrist and felt it for several seconds, then peered at her face.
“Shock,” he said succinctly. “Severe shock. I advise you to go home and take as much rest as you feel you need. Have all your meals brought up, and don’t receive any visitors except the immediate family, and not them, if you don’t choose. Do nothing strenuous, and do not allow yourself to become upset about anything at all.”
The old lady’s face eased with satisfaction; the fierce color ebbed a little.
“Good,” she said, climbing to her feet with his help. “Knew you would know what to do. Can’t take any more of this—I don’t know what the world is coming to—never had anything like this when I was young. People knew their places then and kept them. Too busy working to go around desecrating graves of their betters. Too much education of the wrong people nowadays; that’s what’s responsible, you know. Now they’ve got curiosities and appetites that are no good for them. It isn’t natural! See what’s happened here! Even the church isn’t safe anymore. It’s worse than if the French had invaded, after all!” With that parting shot she stumped out, banging her stick furiously against the door.
“Poor dear lady,” the vicar muttered. “What a quite dreadful shock for her—and at her age, too. One would think she had earned a little respite from the sins of the world.”
Alicia was still sitting on the vestry bench in the cold. She suddenly realized how much she disliked the old lady. She could never recall a moment since the time she had become betrothed to Augustus when she had felt at ease with her. Until now she had hidden it from herself, for Augustus’s sake. But there was no need any longer. Augustus was dead.
With a lurch she remembered his body in the pew, and on the slab in that bitter mortuary with the little man in the white coat who was so terrifyingly happy all the time in his room full of corpses. Thank goodness the policeman at least had been a little more sober; in fact, quite pleasant, in his way.
As if she had conjured him out of her thoughts the door swung open, and Pitt appeared in front of her, shaking himself like a great wet dog and spraying water from his coattails and off his sleeves. She had not thought of the police coming, and now all sorts of ugly fears crowded into her mind. Why? Why had Augustus risen out of his grave again like some persistent, obscene reminder of the past, preventing her from stepping out of it into the future? The future could hold so much promise; she had met new people, especially one new person, slim, elegant, with all the laughter and charm Augustus had lost. Perhaps he had been like that in his youth, but she had not known him then. She wanted to dance, to make jokes of trivial things, to sing something round the spinet other than hymns and solemn ballads. She wanted to be in love and say giddy and uproarious things, have a past worth remembering, like the old lady who sat rereading her youth from a hundred letters. No doubt there was sadness in them, but there was passion, too, if there was any truth in her retelling.
The policeman was staring at her with bright gray eyes. He was the untidiest creature she had ever seen, not fit to be in a church.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I thought we’d seen the end of it.”
She could think of no answer.
“Do you know of anyone who might be doing this, ma’am?” he went on.
She looked up at his face, and a whole abyss of new horror opened up in front of her. She had presumed it was an anonymous crime, the